Definitions/Characteristics of
Behavioral Objective(s)

A statement of what students ought to be able to do as a
consequence of instruction. (Goodlad, in Popham et al., 1969)

Explicit formulations of ways in which students are expected
to be changed by the educative process. (Bloom, 1956)

What the students should be able to do at the end of a
learning period that they could not do beforehand. (Mager, 1962)

"An objective is a description of a performance you want
learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent. An objective describes
an intended result of instruction, rather than the process of instruction itself."
(Mager, 1975)

Properly constructed education objectives represent relatively
specific statements about what students should be able to do following instruction.
(Gallagher and Smith, 1989)

According to Guilbert (1984) in article entitled How to Devise
Educational Objectives the qualities of specific learning objectives are:

Relevant

Unequivocal

Feasible

Logical

Observable

Measurable

Characteristics of effective objectives as described by Westberg and
Jason (1993) in Collaborative Clinical Education.

Various Alternative Names for
Behavioral Objectives

Special note: In educational psychology we define
learning as a "change in behavior." This is a little confusing but if a student
could not answer a particular question on a pretest, then received instruction, and then
answered the question correctly on a posttest, a change in behavior is illustrated and
learning is considered to have occurred. Objectives specify the learning or expected
behavior so hence the term behavioral objective. Other names used for behavioral
objectives include:

History (Brief) and Controversy Around
Behavioral Objectives

Behavioral objectives became known to many educators through a book
entitled, Preparing Instructional Objectives, written by Robert F. Mager that was
published in 1962. It was during the 60's and early 70's that many public school teachers
were required to write behavioral objectives as a critical component of their daily lesson
plans. Many workshops for teachers were conducted and the Mager model for writing
behavioral objectives was taught. The Mager model recommended that objectives should be
specific and measurable. The Magerian model specified three parts to an objective as
follows: (1) It should have a measurable verb (an action verb), (2) It should include a
specification of what is given the learner, and (3) It should contain a specification of
criteria for success or competency. The debate about the value of objectives relative to
the planning and delivery of instruction has gone on for many years. Two articles that
exemplified this debate were "Behavioral Objectives Yes" and "Behavioral
Objectives No." There is research to support the effectiveness of objectives relative
to increased learning and retention. Admittedly, there are also studies that show no
significant differences. However, behavioral objectives are widely accepted as a necessary
component of the instructional design process.

The Kemp Model is circular as opposed to linear. Many teachers like
this instructional design model because the circular design is closer to the way they
actually go about the design of instruction. The Kemp Model gives them permission to be
intuitive but it also has a structure that is systematic. For example, an instructor might
write a set of learning objectives as the first step in the instructional design process,
then develop content based on those objectives but in the process of developing/planning
content he/she would revisit and modify the learning objectives. On the other hand, an
instructor might prefer to work on the content as the first step in the instructional
design process and then write the learning objectives. To develop the optimal instruction,
all components of the Kemp Model should receive attention and ideally, most of the
components should be visited more than once before instruction is delivered.

Quotes/Comments Regarding Objectives

Identifying learning objectives sharpens the focus of learning
for the students as they progress through their third year and it gives the clerkship
directors distinct learning agendas. Further, it allows the clerkship directors to assess
the overall achievement of the learning objectives they have identified as vital.

Medical teachers agree that the process of writing objectives
leads to clarification of intuitively held teaching goals and thus leads to better
teaching and testing decisions. To achieve this benefit, an instructor must invest
considerable time, effort and creativity in the process. The path of least resistance in
writing objectives often leads to goals which serve no useful function and may be harmful
to the teaching-learning process

The respondents agreed that the major potential problem is
that the use of objectives can led one to focus teaching and evaluation activity on
outcomes of a trivial nature. This can be the result if one does not put sufficient time
and effort into the process of writing the objectives.

Changes in strategy with experience generally focus on using
fewer, more inclusive objectives, less slavish adherence to the rules according to Mager
(1962) and use of varying formats for clear objectives dealing with higher level thought
processes.

Teachers in the basic sciences have incorporated a three level
taxonomy of objectives into their work. In this taxonomy, first order objectives concern
the ability to reproduce material in essentially the same form as it was learned. Second
order objectives reflect understanding of an organized body of concepts and principles.
This level of understanding is documented by determining whether students can recognize
previously unseen examples of a concept or principle and whether they can describe other
system changes which will result from a specified change in the system. Third order
objectives require students to apply theories, concepts and principles to solve previously
unencountered problems.

"Teachers agree that objectives in traditional form as defined
by Mager (1962) are generally not sufficient to provide the desired level of guidance when
focusing on higher level thought processes. One individual noted that as objectives are
pushed up the taxonomy, they tend to become so abstract that they lose their value for
guiding student learning. Several people reported that they now provide concrete written
examples of what is expected as a means of dealing with this problem. One group member
stated that he writes test questions for objectives as a means of testing their clarity.
If a quality test question cannot be prepared, the objective needs to be changed.

From:
Williams RG and Osborne CE
Medical Teachers' Perspectives on Development and Use of Objectives
Medical Education 1982 16: 68-71

Examples of Behavioral Objectives Written
in General (not easily measurable) Followed by An Effort to Make the Objective More
Specific/Descriptive and More Measurable

General:

The learner will be able to: orally present a new patient's case

More Specific:

The learner will be able to: orally present a new patient's case in
a logical manner, chronologically developing the present illness, summarizing the
pertinent positive and negative findings as well as the differential diagnosis and plans
for further testing and treatment.

General:

The learner will be able to: prepare appropriate new patient workups

More Specific:

The learner will be able to: prepare legible, comprehensive, and
focused new patient workups that include the following features:

Use of standard bibliographic application to download citations from
a search and organize them into a personal database; and

Identify and acquire full-text electronic documents available from
the WWW.

General:

The learner will be able to: properly examine a stool specimen for
the presence of ova and parasites.

More Specific:

The learner will be able to: take stool specimens infected with 1 of
10 possible ova and parasites and correctly identify them.

Even More Specific:

The student will be able to: take stool specimens infected with 1 of
10 possible parasites, process it according to standard procedures, and identify under a
microscope examples of ova and of parasites (Parasites must be identified by scientific
name.)

Tips on Writing

Most books that provide instruction on the writing of behavioral
objectives state that an objective needs to have three components as follows:

A measurable verb (also known as performance)

The important conditions (if any) under which the performance is to
occur and

The criterion of acceptable performance

It is important to say that many objectives are written in a manner
in which the important conditions and criterion are implicit. If they really are implicit
the argument can be made that they may not be necessary. For example, an objective might
be stated as follows.

The student will be able to name the five stages of mitosis.

There would be no point in stating the objective as follows just to
meet the requirements of it having a criterion.

The student will correctly (criterion) name the five
stages of mitosis within 30 seconds (criterion).

On the hand, there may be objectives that need to have the
conditions and/or criterion specified. For example, a teacher might begin the process of
writing an objective with a general statement such as:

The learner will be able to prepare appropriate new patient
workups.

He/she then might decide that this objective is too vague or general
to be instructional to the student and to also let others who teach the student know what
is expected. Therefore, in an effort to improve the objective the teacher might add
criteria as exemplified below.

The learner will be able to prepare legible, comprehensive, and
focused new patient workups that include the following features:

A comprehensive physical examination with detail pertinent to the
patient's problem.

A succinct and, where appropriate, unified list of all problems
identified in the history and physical examination.

A differential diagnosis for each problem (appropriate to level
of training)

A diagnosis/treatment plan for each problem (appropriate to level
of training)

One could argue that the teacher could add some time frame criterion
such as - 1 hour - but such a time frame might be meaningless and not necessary. Please
note that in this objective the condition is not stated and may be unnecessary.

Please note that if you think of the purpose of the objective as a
statement that serves the purpose of guiding planning, guiding teaching, guiding learning,
and guiding evaluation the need to state or not to state the condition and the criterion
will probably be clear to you.

Liaison committee on Medical Education
Functions and Structure of a Medical School: Standards for Accreditation of Medical
Education Programs Leading to the MD Degree
Washington, DC, and Chicago, IL: The Association of American Medical Colleges and the
American Medical Association, 1994

Muller S (chairman)
Physicians for the Twenty-First Century: Report of the Project Panel on the General
Professional Education of the Physician and College Preparation for Medicine
Journal of Medical Education 1984, Nov;59(11Pt.2)